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Tuesday, 3 January 2017

A Two-State Solution – Built on Nothing More than Hope.

I used to be a
two-stater - until it blew up in my face with a spate of Palestinian terror
bombings here in Netanya. This was afterwe signed a "peace"
agreement with Arafat, the first Islamic arch-terrorist.

Two-staters! I have two
simple questions.

Can you assure us we
are not going to suffer the same bad experience we had after we invited Arafat
to come out of hiding in Tunis? All this
for the false peace you promised us.

Can you promise us that
we will not have the same multi-terror threats we have experienced after we
dragged eight thousand Israelis out of Gaza? All the dead and injured after you
insisted this was a step toward peace.

I no longer believe in
a two-state solution for one very strong reason.

After lengthy research
and talks with people in our national intelligence I have been led to
understand that neither side of the Palestinian political divide intends to
allow Israel to exist as a Jewish State even if they sign a 'temporary'
agreement.

They will follow the
Arafat example of signing something today only to tear it up at some future
time of convenience.

This is, after all,
and ideology and a tactic imposed on them by Mohammad as Arafat admitted in a
Johannesburg mosque after he signed the Oslo Peace Accords on the
White House lawn in September 1993.

In May 1994, he told
an adoring congregation that, “This agreement I am not considering it more
than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Mohammad and
Koreish, and you remember that the Caliph Omar had refused this agreement and
considered it a despicable truce…In the same way Mohammad had accepted it, we
are now accepting this peace effort.”

Arafat, the new
Mohammad, returned to terror once he had established his base in his Muqata
headquarters in Ramallah.

He promised us “Peace
of the brave!”

He gave us peace of
the grave.

This was all
pre-planned, just as they are doing today. In November of 1994 he exposed
Palestinian duplicity further by saying, “Since we cannot defeat Israel in
war we do it in stages. We take any and every territory we can of Palestine and
establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When
the time comes we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow
against Israel.”

Arafat ended with this
prophetic warning that sounds frightening familiar to us;

“The speedy retreat of
Israel from the occupied areas is only the first stage in the establishment of
a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. Only a state like that can
continue the struggle to remove the enemy from all Palestinian lands.”

For today’s
Palestinian leadership the Oslo Accords signed by Arafat is a “despicable
truce” which was abrogated with the passing on UN Security Council Resolution
2334. Mahmoud Abbas became the modern-day Caliph Omar.

Is this the enemy we
should be ceding further territory, our land, to, including Jerusalem? Do we really trust them that much?

The current
Palestinian manoeuvres follow precisely in the footsteps of Arafat.

The sad truth is that
a two-state dream will not become a reality because neither side of the
Palestinian political divide wants it to happen except as a temporary truce
before the next stage to Israel’s ultimate defeat.

So why should we play
their game?

Another sad reality is
that two-state planners do not care what a Palestine will end up being. They
don’t care if it will be undemocratic, corrupt, or a radical Islamic regime. It
just has to be.

They may care, but it
is shunted into the dark unexplored recesses of their diplomatic minds because
bringing it out into the open can only expose the awkward truth that such a
state would add chaos and violence and not end well for peace or regional
stability. Just look at the violent domestic political and ideological
divisions within Palestinian society today.

Is that really what they
want to impose on Israel by making it legal and binding as they tried to do
with their horrendous Security Council resolution?

It’s really nothing
more than hope.

Two-staters cling to
the hope that their efforts will lead to an end of conflict. They assure us
that this is the only way that Israel can live in peace (No it won’t) and they
really do have our best interests at heart. No they don't. No diplomat I have met has ever assured me of
the certainty of future peace after any agreement is signed with an adversary
that continues to educate and incite their people that we have no right to
exist.

The two-state process
is based on us making physical concessions and withdrawals in return for a
promise or a hope that they will behave like normal peaceful people.

In other words, we
weaken ourselves in the hope that it will bring peace.

The two-state solution
is built on nothing more solid than hope.

Not good enough. We know
for certain that they won't settle down and live in peace with us.

The Palestinians are
imposing violence and terrorism on us even as they are conducting a political
war against us in pursuit of their ultimate goal. They haven't moved one centimeter
towards recognition and peace in fifty years while we have made withdrawal
after withdrawal, concession after concession.

They refuse to accept
the notion of a Jewish State anywhere in the region. They won't even tolerate a
Jew living in their future state. And yet two-staters tell us we should
make further concessions that will jeopardize our future in the hope that a
Palestine will be more peaceful than Gaza or Southern Lebanon.

We keep hearing the
mantra that the only way for the Jews to live in a Jewish and democratic state
is to make more land concessions as there is no viable alternative to a
two-state solution.

Yes there are.

Almost all the
alternatives I have heard do indeed leave Israel as a majority Jewish state.

Most offer both Jews
and Arabs a better and more secure life than they enjoy now.

Some, out of sheer necessity,
dismantle an undemocratic and autocratic Palestinian Authority that has been
unwilling to make peace but opens the way to make Arab lives more prosperous
and free.

One, based on the core
belief that Arabs have a far stronger loyalty to family and clan than to an
imposed leadership, creates self-governing independent city-states (i.e.
Monaco) that can coordinate into an emirates-type federation.

One proposes parts of
the West Bank confederated to Jordan with the Gaza Strip confederated to Egypt and
with Israel retaining Area C as sovereign territory.

Another offers a
generous humanitarian solution to Arabs unwilling to live and prosper in an
Israeli liberal democracy.

It is time that the
world was allowed to hear viable alternatives before coming to the wrong
conclusion that there aren’t any.

It should be vitally
important to bring the voices of alternative solutions to public and diplomatic
awareness.

Some of these formulas
may be accepted. Some may not, but the only other alternative left to us it
seems to me is to chase after a two-state fantasy for another fifty years – and
that is no alternative at all.

They say the
definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly while hoping for a
different outcome.

Give the alternatives
the air to breathe – and there are alternatives.

Barry Shaw is the
Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic
Studies. He is the author of the new book ‘1917. From Palestine to the Land of Israel’ available
from Amazon and CreateSpace.